


Testament

by iori_sempai



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Cannibalism, Dismemberment, Gen, Ghouls Eating Children, Harm to Children, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 06:48:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2259936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iori_sempai/pseuds/iori_sempai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why hadn't he eaten Koutarou like the others? The answer was perhaps the most simple, and the one his beloved son would never accept: because he<i> couldn't.</i> </p><p>The story of Donato Porpora.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Testament

**Author's Note:**

> Aiming for a final length of 3-4 chapters, around 2-3k words each.

 

> _When the Lord your God enlarges your border as He has promised you, and you say, ‘Let me eat meat,’ because you long to eat meat, you may eat as much meat as your heart desires._  

 

He does not consider himself a gourmet; nevertheless, he is a ghoul who has eaten many humans over the years, and one who lived as long as him has certainly developed preferences.

For a long time, he'd always hunted those who were a similar age to himself. They were the easiest to keep off-guard by presenting himself as a peer. After a bad scuffle with another ghoul over territory, he'd narrowly escaped with his life. At his weakest, he had to break his usual style of hunting and go for a smaller prey.

How lucky he had been to find her, walking home from school, her bright bookbag nearly as large as her torso.  
  
Even half-crazed from hunger and broken-down, it had been so easy to pull her into the alley. She didn't even have the time to scream before he was able to snap her little neck. He was thankful for the effortlessness of it-- he hadn't the strength to deploy his kagune, not even for a short period of time.  
  
Biting into her soft and succulent meat at that time had been the closest to heaven a ghoul like him would ever get. He'd never forget how her red blood felt running down his chin as he sunk his teeth into the flesh of her upper arm, ripping away chunks like a starving animal. Maybe it was just because he was hurt and starving, but compared to the tough meat of a middle-aged man, or the sweet, fatty meat of a older woman, that small girl had been the best meal of his life.  
  
He hadn't left a strip of meat on her body, and if he had been any less hurried, he would have taken the time to suck the marrow from her bones.  
  
Ever since that experience, something had changed in his taste buds. His normal prey of older men and women became unappetizing to him. Only an arm or leg before he'd completely lose his desire to have another bite and he would have to leave the rest to the scavenging ghouls too weak to seek out their own kill.  
  
He was hungry.  
  
It was ridiculous, because he had the opportunity to eat until full on so many occasions. He was being picky. Every time he bit into a human, the thought of that little redheaded girl would flash before his eyes. She had been so delicious, far more than the adults he'd been eating ever since. No doubt it was a simple Pavlovian response. She had been there when he'd been at his breaking point, and like the chicken soup that comforted human children when they were sick or ill, her flesh had comforted him.  
  
He wanted to relive that day.  
  
Two months went by before he had the perfect chance. It had been an elementary schooler with a cute face, that he had been surprised to discover was a little boy. He had been worried that his flesh would not compare to the girl from his memories, but he was wrong. While they were still young, the meat from boys and girls tasted similar to each other. Soft, pliant, melt-in-your-mouth.

And with his second taste, he was completely hooked.  
  
However, it was hard to find children to hunt. With each one he pulled off the streets, the more tightly parents began to hold on to them. The more the CCG grew interested, and his fellow ghouls grew hostile toward him for stirring up trouble. Many times he had been driven from ward to ward in his yearning for a human young enough to satisfy his hunger.  
  
On a day he remembers quite well, he had heard about a crematorium the CCG recently investigated. After doing analysis on the ashes of certain individuals cremated there, the remains were determined to be almost entirely bone ash. The corpses had been stripped of their meat before being burned. A band of ghouls had run the facility, feeding on whichever corpses had no one present during cremation.  
  
What a wonderful idea, he had thought. They didn't have to do anything, to hunt, or arouse suspicion that particular way. The meals just came right to their door. Of course they had gotten caught in the end, but for how long were they able to pull it off? Just how many humans had they harvested?

Then, an article next to the headline story caught his eye. It was a small, but heartrending story about the orphans left behind after ghoul attacks. Many were taken in by the CCG-- but that was only when they were the ones involved. They could not keep track of every ghoul, and how many children had slipped through the cracks to live on the streets? With no one to speak for them, and no way to provide, many had to join unsavory gangs to survive, while others were simply captured and sold into the sex trade, or other forms of servitude.  
  
That was the article that changed everything. His eyes widened, and in that moment, he had come up with the most ingenious plan to eat well, without suffering the problems he had now.  
  
It took two years of careful planning before everything was set. He read the Bible until he knew it from front to back, attended every mass at any church he could when not working; he watched, listened, _became._ Once he finally had enough money, he obtained the necessary documents to be Donato Porpora, a newly immigrated priest on a mission to help the poor orphans of Japan.  
  
He had found the perfect place to begin in the intermediary years. A small church that took in orphans near Yumesaki was on the verge of shutting down from a lack of funds. He visits, telling his rehearsed story to the elderly woman running the place. Her eyes water when he tells her that he would be interested in taking over. She had been at her wit's end hoping for some ray of light, her honest tears speaking of a desperate concern for the children.  
  
Donato introduces himself to the children with gifts. With all their sweet smells wafting in the air, it's hard for him to not to take one now-- but he holds back. He'd been so careful so far. He'd started hunting older men and women once more, and never even nibbled on a child in the area, too afraid of someone catching onto his scheme. In the middle of the church, however, with the little morsels around him in a half-circle as he reads a passage from the Bible, it is so very hard to resist temptation.  
  
The woman is too invested in the children to let them disappear on his word, so he will have to get rid of her. He cannot simply eat her-- even if she didn't have any family, she was fairly well known in the nearby communities, and she is too close to him for comfort. The old lady's age is catching up with her. Humans are so fragile, the older, the even more so.  
  
He pushes her down the stairs in her home.  
  
It's the middle of the night. She's an old lady who had bad fall, and no one to look into her. It's declared an accident. With the presence of ghouls and other bizarre crimes, the police force had gotten lazy in their pursuit of normal crimes. It looked like an accident. It was plausible. There were no relatives to appease with further investigation. The case was closed, and the church was entirely Donato's, with no prying eyes looking into the welfare of the children.  
  
They were all his.  
  
But still, he cannot eat them.  
  
Donato has to continue the farce for a little longer-- just a little more, he tells himself. He needs to pretend, to look for adoptive parents, to tell the children that he had found some people who were interested in taking care of them. Some looked so relieved when they heard, while others seemed afraid that they would have to leave their precious church. Sanae is one of the most nervous. She is almost twelve years old, having lived there the longest.  
  
"Congratulations, Sanae," he tells her in front of the other children. "I've found a good place for you to go."  
  
When the day arrives, Sanae looks up at him and says, "I'm scared, Father..." Her hand trembles in his own as he leads her away from the doors of the orphanage.  
  
"There's nothing to be afraid of. It's a very good place." Donato gives her a reassuring smile, and she tries her best to give him one in return. He takes her through a wooded path, telling her that it is a special shortcut to where he would be taking her.  
  
"You've been a good girl, haven't you, Sanae?"  
  
Sanae looks down, quiet for a long moment. But then, she carefully nods.  
  
"Then, you'll make it into heaven." He swings the spine of the heavy Bible against the girl's head, with more than enough force to knock her off her feet. She lands in the dirt like a limp puppet with her strings cut. Her body twitches for a few seconds, and then stops moving completely. Donato sucks in a long gasp. He hadn't meant to kill the girl, only to put her to sleep for a little while, but he wants her so much that he is shaking.  
  
He pulls her over his shoulder and takes her to the large shed behind the orphanage as fast as his legs will carry him. It had everything he needed inside-- blades, restraints, a very large refrigerator.  
  
Donato practically moans once the door is barred shut and the tender girl is under him. She's still so warm to the touch, and he's been waiting so, _so_ unbearably long for this day-- the day he'd finally be able to dig into the delectable flesh of those young children. He pulls at her shirt and bites down on her shoulder, teeth piercing through her soft skin so easily.

Her warm blood is a mix of sweet and salty on his tongue, and he enjoys its intense flavor just as much as the meat. She tasted differently from the younger ones he preferred the most, but as the oldest, it was best to enjoy her first. After the long, long fasting, he couldn't complain about the quality of the meal one bit.  
  
He sighs through his nose, chewing her more thoroughly. Ahhh, he wanted more... but he couldn't get ahead of himself. Her meat would last him through the week. He'd savor every scrap in that time. Then he would wait another month for the next child to be "adopted."  
  
It wouldn't do him well to be greedy.  
  
Three of the children are gone when a new one finally arrives with a woman in her forties, by the name of Michiko. It's a small boy that Donato assumes to be around six or seven, with short black hair and steely, gray eyes staring straight ahead.  
  
"And who's this?" Donato asks, the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes crinkling as smiles at the boy. The boy doesn't respond to him, not even when he squats down to get a closer look at him.  
  
"His name is Amon Koutarou," the woman says, with a slight tremor to her voice. "His parents were killed in an accident a few months ago. I was a friend of his mother, so I've been trying to take care of him, but I just can't support him anymore. Father... do you think you can help me?"  
  
He stands up to look at the woman fully, and places his hand on her shoulder. "Of course. I will do everything to help Koutarou. Hopefully there will be someone interested in adopting him."  
  
Michiko seems so grateful to hear his words. He continues speaking with her a little longer, but he can tell that she is eager to leave, happy to get rid of the burden she'd found herself saddled with unexpectedly. So many of the children here had similar stories, about parents dying, relatives turning them out on the streets, and having no where else to go.  
  
He bends down again, beaming at the small boy and holding out his hand. "Do you want to meet your new friends, Koutarou?" His eyes turn up toward him. Very carefully, Koutarou reaches out for his hand.  
  
Koutarou keeps to himself for the whole of the first week. It's only when Donato starts to read from the Bible that his eyes sharpen, and he scoots closer into the tight circle.  
  
When the other kids are outside in the yard playing, Koutarou sits inside, squinting at the large book Donato had been reading from earlier. Donato takes a seat near the boy, watching his small mouth twist into a frown at all the unwieldy words.  
  
"Would you like me to read a little more for you?" he asks, and Koutarou jumps, startled. Then, he nods. Donato holds in a sigh at Koutarou's unending silence. Michiko hadn't mentioned him being mute when he dropped him off, so Donato thinks he is simply being withdrawn. "It would be good if you spoke a little. Am I that scary?"  
  
Koutarou swallows tightly, then opens his mouth. "N... no." His voice comes out small and raspy, and Donato can only think about how wrong the poor boy is in his assessment.  
  
He pats Koutarou's head gently, then pulls the book halfway onto his knee. He picks up where Koutarou had been reading, tracing the words with his finger and reading slowly so that he can follow along. Donato notices his thin lips moving slightly as he tries to repeat the unfamiliar words after him as he reads. Soon, Donato reaches the end of the page. Koutarou still stares sternly at it, so Donato pushes the book into the boy's lap. "Why don't you try it now?"  
  
Koutarou's voice is strained and stuttering as he quietly read the words; every time he falters, Donato lightly repeats the word with the correct pronunciation. After managing to finish, he's obviously pleased with himself, so Donato strokes his hair and praises him. "You did a great job!"

Koutarou's cheeks flush slightly first, and then comes a shy smile. It is the first the boy has ever worn before him.

Strangely, in this moment, Donato does not think he looks delicious or good enough to eat right there-- he looks fragile and innocent and utterly endearing.


End file.
